Tag Archives: marriage renewal

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. – II Corinthians 5:17

God is in the business of renewal and restoration. If you put God at the center of your relationship (Part 1) and commit to investing deeply in your marriage for 40 days (Part 2), God will breathe new life and energy into you both. But how do you transition from that intense focus to a more maintainable level of energy? The level of intense focus and energy that your marriage renewal requires initially cannot and does not need to be maintained indefinitely. After 40 days, you’ll want to transition into the new phase of your renewal.

Phase Two – Healing and Rebuilding

In the initial phase of your renewal, you are working to enrich your marriage, recapture your friendship, and put God at the center of your union. Making these changes permanent requires an important transition in your mindset and your activities.

Your first forty days were likely a roller-coaster of emotion, intimacy, and vulnerability. Many couples get caught up in the energy and the excitement of breathing new life into their marriage. However, the critical season following those first forty days will determine whether these changes will last or if the couple will slip back into old patterns and behaviors.

You want this new version of your marriage to last, don’t you? Rebuilding your bond and healing relationship wounds characterize much of this second phase. Additionally, you will be transitioning to more sustainable levels of focus and energy. As with the first phase, defining goals and concrete actions will be critical for success.

Goals for this Phase

Defining goals for each phase of your renewal is important. Without goals, it is easy to drift aimlessly, not actually making the progress necessary to renew your bond. Without goals, it is easy to lose sight of why the two of you began this renewal and what you need to do in order to maintain the momentum. Thus, each couple much define goals that make sense for their marriage, given the unique challenges and heartaches that they have experienced together. While no definitive list can be included, but common themes will tend to exist amid the goals which couples define for this phase. These themes include trust, forgiveness, and healingfrom whatever hurts lie in your collective past.

As the two of you consider the pain that you must overcome and the trust you must rebuild during this phase, be prepared for a lot of work. The following, prior blog posts may prove helpful:

Taking Action

As with the first phase of renewal, all of this just talk unless you put it into action. We explore a long list of concrete actions in The Phoenix Marriage, but here’s a few general themes you can except for your actions to align with:

Find your new normal – In the first forty days (phase one) couples tend to prioritize their marriage, letting non-essential activities fall away (hobbies, outings with friends, family outings, etc.). This is necessary, because you need focused attention to build healthy patterns. But now the two of you must find a way to fold some of those activities back in while also identifying what changes need to happen. You’ll also be trying to find your new normal in terms of routines, frequency of contact, and how you communicate with one another. It’s normal for their to be anxiety over anything that feels like previous routines. You’ll need to work together to build confidence that this “new normal” won’t result in falling back into old patterns.

Lovingly, patiently rebuild trust – The loss of trust, in whatever measure, the two of you have experienced can be devastating for a couple. As I write in chapter 7:

Prior to beginning this renewal process, your spiritual and emotional connection had faded and your bond had weakened. While this will look different for each couple, the simple fact is this: trust has been broken at some level. In most cases, the trust has been broken by both the husband and wife. You trusted your mate to love you fully and selflessly, and he or she fell short of that mark. In more extreme situations, you find yourself coping with betrayal of trust from addiction, abuse, or infidelity. Wherever you are on the spectrum, trust has been violated, and rebuilding it will require time and patience. It won’t be easy, but take heart, trust can be restored.

Battle your demons – We all have something we must battle as a part of the renewal and healing process. Insecurity, guilt, doubt, fear, and resentment are common obstacles. One of the couples we are walking with recently shared a fear with us: “I’m 46 years old, I just don’t know if it’s even possible for me to change at this point. Things will inevitably slip back into their old patterns.” You have to resist this sort of negative self talk and embrace the reality that each day you can decide who you want to be and how you will behave as an individual and as a member of your marriage team.

Grieve and process emotion in healthy ways – There is pain in the collective past of your relationship. During the intense focus of the first 40 days, you may find that you swept much of these issues under the proverbial rug. But you can’t ignore them forever. They will either come out unexpectedly and explosively or you can choose to let them out a piece at a time as part of a healthy and constructive healing process. One couple that we mentored last year experienced significant challenges when alcohol was used as a coping mechanism. Another suffered from wild emotional swings when safe, healthy outlets for emotion were not provided. Processing all of the past hurt is crucial and it is an on-going process, because “wounds heal crooked” (see article referenced above).

Extend grace to one another – Be gracious and understanding with each other as you transition from the intensity and excitement of the first phase of renewal, into a focus upon healing an rebuilding in this second phase. You will both need to extend a lot of grace toward each other as you collectively heal and rebuild. Tammy and I have come to learn that grace, is the universal love language.

Ingredients for Success

We have found that prayer is the single most powerful ingredient of our revitalized marriage. In fact, our most popular post to date: “We tried something new in the bedroom and it saved our marriage” explores that very topic. Another important ingredient for success is to be gracious with each other as you each process past hurts and work to put into place your new normal. One of you might heal and move on faster than the other. Grace and patience should permeate the relationship. My wife and I are 22 months into our renewal, and there are still hurts and hangups from my affair that we have to deal with periodically. I had no idea how expensive my affair would be, but I realize it now.

This second phase will likely be harder than the first, but it is rewarding in terms of intimacy and depth that it yields for your relationship. There’s a lot of work for you both to do, but it’s worth every painful conversation, every raw prayer, and every tear.

Nineteenth century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, is famous for his use of metaphor, irony, and parable in explaining ethical and religious concepts. One particularly famous parable describes a rather odd crime:

Two thieves broke into a jewelry store one night, but instead of stealing the jewels they simply switched the price tags. They put high-priced tags on cheap jewelry and low-priced tags on valuable gems. For several weeks no one noticed. People bought cheap jewelry for exorbitant prices and rare jewels for next to nothing.

Kierkegaard’s point is that we sometimes have difficulty assessing the actual value or cost associated with something. If we are told it is valuable, we believe it. If we are told something is cheap, we accept it as fact. Our concept of “price”, “worth”, and “value” are subject to the costs and benefits that we assign. But what happens if you assign these incorrectly? Worse yet, what happens if you accept a lie about what something is worth? We live in a fallen world where someone has switched all the price tags around. We assign unmerited value to things that are worthless, and overlook priceless items as inconsequential. We take the most valueable things for granted (integrity, honesty, commitment) while minimizing the full consequences of selfish actions.

Sin is expensive

Sin is expensive. Incredibly expensive. But the price isn’t paid in cash, it’s paid in mental, emotional, and spiritual pain. God didn’t create an arbitrary list of “DOs” and DON’Ts” to see if we could follow them. No, He laid out a set of essential guidelines for living. His anger towards lying, stealing, cheating, coveting, murder, jealousy, and pride is because all of these behaviors destroy relationships. Everything that the Bible labels as sin is something that God is trying to protect us from. His desire is love, peace, grace, and harmony with Him and with all of creation. Sin is our defiant rejection of this in an effort to satisfy our own selfish desires. Almost two years ago, I set out on a destructive path of selfishness that culminated in a two-month affair which nearly destroyed my family. I had no idea just how expensive that path would be. Sadly, we are still paying the price for my selfishness.

Every decision has a cost

My economics professor told me years ago: “there is no free lunch.” If someone offers you something for free, you need to dig deeper. Every decision has a cost. Nothing is ever truly free. Even something that appears to be inconsequential initially, may have substantial long-term effects. The decision to eat unhealthy food has both an initial cost and a long-term cost. The same holds for decisions within relationships.

At its core, all sin is selfishness. In some cases, that selfishness leads us to rationalize actions as being relatively inexpensive (“this will only really affect me, not anyone else”, “I can play near this fire and not get burned”). In all cases, the full emotional and mental cost of our selfish choices is not paid until months and years later. I truly believed that my affair in 2012 was a victimless crime. I naively thought it only impacted the two of us. I was dead wrong. In reality, it hurt every person in my family (myself included) and devastated my wife to such a degree that she is still paying the price nearly two years later.

The full cost of my affair

It is difficult to fully appreciate all the ways that my sin has impacted my life and the life of my family. There were initial costs, short-term costs, and long-term costs.

Initial Costs

Integrity – I have always been a fiercely loyal person. Loyal to family, friends, employers, hobbies, churches, etc. But in a moment of weakness, I sold my integrity as quickly as Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup. After I sold it once, I bought into the enemies lies that I had ruined everything and I might as well throw in the towel.

Self-esteem – Worthless. I felt completely worthless. Unworthy of Tammy’s love. Unworthy of God’s calling on my life. My best bet was to cut Tammy and the kids loose and move on so they could heal.

Stress – I lived a double life for two months. While I was trying to delicately unwind my marriage and let the kids down easy, I was under a terrible amount of stress. I’d never lived a life full of deceit and I don’t recommend it. I was constantly on edge and even developed a habit of grinding my teeth at night.

Short-term Costs

Heartache – As our relationship unraveled and I began pushing for divorce, Tammy and the kids were crushed. All six kiddos had been through divorce before. Those old wounds opened right back up, but this time they would be losing their step-siblings that they had grown to love. Tammy was confused, hurt, and frightened about her future and the kids future.

Distance – My relationship with Tammy and the kids was frayed and distant. I pushed friends away, mentors away, and God away. I was too busy rationalizing my behavior to listen to wise counsel.

Finally, that fateful day at Starbucks arrived. Tammy and I sat down to divide assets and get everything ironed out for the divorce. She confronted me, the Holy Spirit worked on my heart, and we turned a crucial corner. We decided to fight for our marriage and for our family. But the full cost of my selfishness had not been paid yet.

Long-term Costs

Wounds – I wounded my children and my wife deeply. It took over two months before one of the girls began to trust me again and three more months for another (the third doesn’t really talk, so we aren’t sure). But Tammy has paid the highest price for my infidelity. Nearly two years later and she still has days that she must battle with ghosts from the past. Every day is a little easier, but sometimes we take a step back. Wounds heal, but they heal crooked.

Trust – Rebuilding trust has proved to be extremely difficult, as you might imagine. A big part of this is that talk is cheap. So we had to move past just talking about rebuilding trust and actually doing it. We have made great strides, but it hasn’t been easy. Throughout the rebuilding process, we have identified eight rules for re-building trust.

Peace – I robbed us of peace. I wrestle with forgiving myself. Tammy wrestles with trusting me. On occasion Tammy will have an angry outburst. In other cases, a song, movie, or date on the calendar will bring back a flood of painful memories for one or both of us to unpack.

What have you sold too cheaply?

My selfishness was incredibly expensive. But I only see that now in hindsight. What seemed at first to be a personal decision that impacted no one else, turned out to be slippery slope of pain and anguish that devastated my entire family. I sold my integrity, self-esteem, peace of mind, family unity, and marriage at rock-bottom, discount prices. These things were incredibly precious, and I sold them for pennies on the emotional dollar.

As I have shared my story with other men, I have heard from so many that they see ways in which they have allowed their own selfishness to chip away at the joy in their marriage. We have all sold something precious in exchange for meeting a selfish desire:

Those little white lies you tell your spouse make things easier on you at the cost of your integrity.

Pornography costs you pure, genuine intimacy with your mate.

Discontentment with what you have or where you live robs you both of peace.

Manipulation might pay out at first, but it poisons your relationship, sowing seeds of bitterness.

Dismissing your spouse’s need for sexual intimacy could be more convenient, but it damages his or her self-esteem in the process.

Harsh words may win an argument, but your emotional bond suffers.

Maybe its time to start putting the correct price tags on your own actions within your marriage. Recognize the ways in which you have played fast and loose with your mate’s heart. It’s time to stop the cycle of selfishness and honor your marriage as the precious gift that it is.

“The first forty days of your marriage renewal are crucial in changing the atmosphere of your relationship and generating the momentum you need to carry you forward. It won’t be easy. Breaking patterns and habitual ways of thinking and interacting will prove an enormous challenge. We’ve chosen forty days, in part, to help you establish new patterns of behavior. Throughout the Bible, forty days has been shown to be a significant time period. “

During those forty days, you need a clear set of goals and practical actions that you and your spouse can take to put your marriage restoration on a solid footing.

Setting Goals to Save your Marriage

Like any endeavor, by establishing and articulating goals it crystalizes your focus and builds a sense of urgency. During your first forty days of renewal, the two of you will want to identify a set of goals to achieve. Some of these goals will be unique to the particular challenges faced in your relationship. Others address more general issues which we found to be common amongst many couples.

Common Goals for Marriage Renewal

Break old habits and start new routines

Learn to communicate openly and authentically

Rebuild your friendship

Of course none of these goals will amount to anything if you don’t put them into action.

Taking Action to Save your Marriage

Identifying practical actions to rebuild your relationship is essential. There’s a long list of potential actions the two of you could choose to take, but we identify three common categories here.

(In the book, we describe the set of actions you and your spouse could take in much greater detail.)

Action 1: Clean house – A lot of factors contributed to the problems in your relationship. One step you want to take is to clear out any negative influences that are holding you back (alcohol or drugs, prioritizing other relationships, bad communication patterns, toxic relationships, etc.).

Action 2: Fresh start – Establish new patterns and routines to change the dynamic of your marriage. The tone and the tempo of your interaction must change. Open communication is a necessity. Prioritizing time together is essential. Grace and love must be the guiding principles of your union. Finally, daily and persistent prayer makes the whole thing work.

Action 3: Have fun – Your renewal won’t last if its all about work and sacrifice. You’ve also got to have fun together. Especially during these first forty days you need lots of time together. Time to talk, laugh, play, and recapture the friendship you had when your relationship first began.

Make it real. Make it practical. And give yourselves some grace and understanding as you work together to walk out your renewal day by day.

What’s Next?

If you want to save your marriage, you have to fully commit to the process. The first forty days are intense and require a tremendous degree of dedication. Through your combined efforts and a dependence on God, you will establish invaluable routines and a firm foundation for your new relationship. The next phase – “Healing and Rebuilding” will involve a greater focus on rebuilding trust and healing the wounds from the past. For now, enjoy the excitement and simplicity of this initial phase of renewal. The journey to restore your marriage has just begun!

The content in this post is adapted from our upcoming book (available on Amazon September 2014):

The Phoenix Marriage – Your most important earthly relationship can be restored, renewed, and reborn. God creates beauty out of ashes.

Kyle and Tammy’s Marriage Testimony: We sat down and talked with Michelle Bentham and Mindy Dawn, hosts of Bring IT Radio. They asked us questions about our marriage testimony, family, and our ministry. We shared our story – how we got together, how we fell apart, and how God’s love and grace redeemed our mess of a marriage.

The two of you started off with the best of intentions, but something went awry. Once the newness wore off and the pressures of life set in, your bond began to unravel. It may have set in very quickly, or it might have taken many years, but eventually the stress of jobs, babies, bills, and married life took its toll on your relationship.

What do you do when your marriage has crumbled? How do you piece the fragments back together? What happens when your “I do” turns into “What do I do?”

Marriage Renewal Can Save Your Family from Divorce

We have come to accept that God can save any marriage. It may be hard to believe that right now. There may be a lot of pain between the two of you. One or both of you may have said some very hurtful things. But in spite of the pain in your past, any marriage can be salvaged. It requires a tremendous level of grit and commitment, but a genuine marriage renewal is possible. In addition to our own story of marriage renewal, we have met couples and walked alongside couples that have successfully renewed their marriages. Marriages are being saved every day. Yours could be the next success story.

Three Ingredients for a Successful Marriage Renewal

Renewing your marriage isn’t easy. It’s a lot of hard work. But it also isn’t complicated. All you really need are three essential ingredients.

God at the center – The most important asset your marriage has is faith. I won’t tell you that a marriage can’t be saved without a deep and abiding faith in God, but I will tell you that we have yet to encounter a successful renewal without it. (Jeremiah 32:17, Matthew 19:26)

Two willing people – One person can’t save a relationship by themselves. It takes two willing partners to do the hard work needed to renew a marriage. Both of you must be willing to work, willing to listen to each other, willing to change, and willing to fight for your marriage. As long as you are a team, the two of you can resolve any issue in your relationship. (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)

Stubborn love – Love isn’t about goosebumps and butterflies. Romantic comedies give a false perception of real love. Marriage is less like Hugh Grant and more like Bear Grylls. You need a stubborn, tough-as-nails, love full of grit and determination. (I Corinthians 13:8)

The Marriage Renewal Process

As we describe in our up-coming book, The Phoenix Marriage, the marriage renewal process consists of three phases.

Phase 1:The First Forty Days – Initially you need an intense focus on your relationship. During this phase you prioritize your relationship above anything else. Spend time together and reconnect as a couple. Developing your communication skills, avoid negativity, speak kindness and optimism into your union, and rebuild your friendship. For some this is difficult, but for many this initial phase can be exhilarating and refreshing.

Phase 2:Healing and Rebuilding – Moving beyond the initial burst of activity in renewing your marriage, you must now begin the more long-term process of healing and rebuilding. You likely have a lot of hurt to unpack. The process of healing wounds is not a neat and clean one, because wounds heal crooked. This phase can be difficult to handle as the two of you experience emotional cycles and work through months or years of pain and neglect. Take it one day at a time and lean on the three ingredients we discussed earlier (God, your willingness to work as a team, a stubborn and unshakable love).

Phase 3:On-going Investment – Eventually the tone of your relationship will shift from healing and rebuilding to continual marriage renewal. Emotional episodes and relationship repair will occur less and less. At some point you will transition toward on-going maintenance and investment in your relationship. This level of engagement will be less than the first two phases, but far more than the level of investment you made before your renewal. Successful relationships require work. Never stop pouring love, honor, and grace into your marriage.

Marriage Renewal Ground Rules

If your marriage renewal is to be a success, the two of you must identify and agree to follow a fundamental set of ground rules.

Rule #1:Emotions are always good – No matter how hard it may be to hear your mate express the way he or she feels, you must realize that emotions are never “wrong”. There are certainly healthy and unhealthy expressions of emotion, but emotions themselves are ALWAYSvalid.

Rule #2: Raw communication is encouraged – Everyone says they want honesty, but some truths are hard to hear. No matter how difficult it might be, we have found that open, honest communication is best. Brutal, no-holds barred authenticity is necessary if the two of you are going to be able to reconnect and process the pain between you.

Rule #3: Take responsibility for your stuff – How did your marriage get into trouble in the first place? It takes two to tango and it takes two to dissolve a marriage. Each of you played some role in whittling away the strength of your relationship. Admit your faults and put your heart on the line with a soul-reaching apology for hurting your mate.

Rule #4: Everyone loses at the blame game – Your marriage doesn’t need shaming and blaming. It needs massive doses of love and grace. Each of you should take responsibility for your own baggage and enthusiastically apologize to the other as needed (see Rule #3). But thrusting blame on your partner is never the right answer.

Rule #5: Don’t try to do this alone – Renewing your marriage will necessitate that you and your spouse spend a lot of time together; but you can’t renew your marriage alone. Your marriage needs a mentor. Each of you need positive influences in your lives to help hold you accountable in your renewal journey. Surround yourselves with a support network. Isolation is dangerous.

God Can Save Any Marriage

The exact course of your marriage renewal is not predictable. Your process will likely look different from what is experienced by others, but some elements are common. Your marriage renewal requires the same three ingredients, will follow the same basic three-step process, and should adhere to all five ground rules that we identified. These concepts and more are explored in greater detail in our up-coming book, The Phoenix Marriage.

This post is the first in a series of articles on marriage renewal. We’ll unpack more details on how to save your marriage in the next several posts.

Trust. Its the cornerstone of any relationship. It holds soldiers together in foxholes and knits hearts together in marriage. The bond of trust is sacred and precious – until it’s broken.

What do you do when you cross the line that you swore you would never cross? How do you continue in a relationship when your spouse breaks your heart, trampling on the vows he or she promised to keep? Whether the result of infidelity, abuse, addiction, or neglect, the loss of trust in a relationship is devastating. And while the prospect of a bright future together looks dim, there is hope.

Rebuilding trust in your marriage is hard, because wounds heal crooked. My wife and I are 18 months into our own journey of renewal. Along the way, we have been blessed to walk alongside other couples. Some are further down the road than we are and others have just recently begun their renewal process. Through our renewal process and that of others, we have gleaned eight rules for rebuilding trust in your marriage.

Eight Rules for Rebuilding Trust in Your Marriage

Many of these rules apply equally to both parties, while others are specific to the spouse that is working to rebuild the trust (the trust healer) or the spouse that is learning to trust again (the hurting spouse).

Be patient(both of you) – There is no timetable for rebuilding trust. Forgiveness and trust are very personal matters and require a sufficient and unknown amount of time to accomplish. Don’t rush this process.

Be open(both of you) – Communicate early (before a problem can escalate) and often (as frequently as an issue occurs). Share your hearts with one another and be vulnerable in expressing your doubts and fears.

Be humble(trust healer) – Pride is the enemy of trust. You must empty yourself of ego and be willing to take any measures necessary to heal the brokenness (formal apologies, schedule changes, job changes, routine changes, etc.).

Be receptive (hurting spouse) – You must be receptive to the work that God wants to do in your heart. You also need to be open to receiving love from your spouse and accept his or her efforts to demonstrate trustworthiness.

Be understanding(trust healer) – Recognize that your spouse is hurt and those wounds will take time to heal. Throughout the healing process, be prepared to provide constant reassurance. Furthermore, the healing process may go in cycles. There will be good days and bad days, but be compassionate and understanding throughout.

Be courageous (both of you) – It is tempting to give into fear and doubt, to assume that one or both of your will break the trust again. It is tempting to believe that the outlook is hopeless. Resist all of this negativity. Be optimistic and courageous.

Be expectant (both of you) – Expect God to reveal Himself powerfully. Put your faith in Him and expect that He will meet both of you more than half-way. You aren’t in this alone. The God of Heaven is in your corner and will bless your marriage with the peace and understanding you need to re-establish confidence.

Once trust has been broken, it is difficult – but not impossible – to restore. As Jesus said, “With God all things are possible” (Matt 19:26).

Rebuilding Trust in Your Marriage is Tricky

Once trust has been broken by one or both of you, you’ll find yourselves caught in a colossal “catch-22” scenario. On the one hand, trust has been broken and is in desperate need of restoration. On the other hand, the primary means of rebuilding trust is to use words. When your words no longer carry weight, how can you possibly use them to repair the damaged trust?

As I discussed in a previous post, when you realize that talk is cheap, you must resort to demonstrating your love and commitment through action.

Actions elegantly and clearly express your heart. By their very nature, they cannot lie. Sacrificial love can be demonstrated daily. Honor can be given through your actions. Day by day and week by week trust can be rebuild through acts of love, honor, and sacrifice. In time, words can once again regain power. But that must be earned.

Rebuilding Trust in Your Marriage is Worth It

It breaks my heart that you marriage is in need of renewal. Loss of trust is devastating and rebuilding that trust is a very hard road. But take heart, because it’s worth it. Your marriage can be made new again. Like scar tissue forming over a wound, the end result might be messy but it will be stronger than it was before. Marriage renewal isn’t just about surviving, but about thriving. Tammy and I have never been so close or felt so hopeful about the road ahead. The bond of trust can be rebuilt in your marriage, too. Your best days are together are yet to come.

The content in this post is adapted from our upcoming book (available on Amazon September 2014):

The Phoenix Marriage– Your most important earthly relationship can be restored, renewed, and reborn.

When Gary Chapman released his book, The Five Love Languages, it revolutionized how we think and talk about relationships. The concept of a “love language” quickly resonated with couples, pastors, and counselors around the globe. Over nearly two decades since the release of that seminal book, discussing your own love language and your spouse’s language has become common place. Unfortunately, the discussion surrounding love languages has tended to veer toward selfish indulgence, rather than unconditional acceptance.

The Language of Love

What we learn through the lens of love languages is that we experience love differently. While working hard for the family might be an expression of love for one person (act of service), it may not resonate with a spouse that primarily experiences love verbally (words of affirmation). Thus, it is important I learn to speak love in a way that my wife understands. This is superb insight, but it has a tendency to put the emphasis upon adapting ourselves to meet each others needs. This misses the mark. As important as it is to express love in a way that your husband or wife can understand, it is more important that you practice the universal love language.

The Universal Love Language

We each speak love a bit differently. Love is experienced as a combination of the five languages, with a strong preference for one or two. But there is a universal language of love that transcends all five. Grace.

Throughout God’s love story with the nation of Israel, there is a consistent thread of love – His grace.

From the parables of Jesus to the conversion of Paul, a common chorus of love rings out – His grace.

Gracious love delivered Israel repeatedly from their enemies.

Gracious love forgave Peter when he denied Christ three times.

Gracious love led Jesus to the cross to buy your freedom.

You might lean toward the love language of affection or quality time. Your mate might fluently speak words of affirmation or effortlessly perform acts of service. But the universal love language that we all understand…is grace.

Unconditional Acceptance

The concept of a love language isn’t just about learning to love each other better. It’s also about graciously accepting your mate when you don’t feelloved.

Affection is my primary love language. I am well-known for my bear hugs and I have raised my children to be very comfortable with giving and receiving affection. Tammy, on the other hand, is not nearly as fluent in the language of affection. During Marriage 1.0 (our relationship prior to The Fall), this language gap was a significant source of friction for us. While she was constantly demonstrating love through acts of service and quality time, none of that felt like love to me. As God has redeemed our relationship in Marriage 2.0, what has emerged from the ashes is a bond rooted in grace.

My wife diligently works to speak my language of affection, but she doesn’t always hit the mark. Likewise, I fall short in speaking her language of quality time and words of affirmation. What we have learned through the process of healing and marriage renewal is that the gap between my expression of love and her expression of love is filled by the universal language of grace.

Your mate fails to affectionately love you – give grace.

You are longing to hear words of affirmation from your spouse – give grace.

Time pressures rob you two of quality time together – give grace.

It’s been a while since you’ve received loving gifts – give grace.

Your mate has fallen short in demonstrating love through acts of service – give grace.

Grace is a balm for the heart, purely expressing love when words and actions fail to suffice.

Love Graciously

I’m not suggesting that you settle for a loveless relationship. Communicate openly with your spouse. Freely share with each other how you most clearly experience love and then work hard to meet each other’s needs. But realize that you each will short of demonstrating that love consistently. When that happens, avoid the temptation to feel bitterness or keep some sort of ridiculous ledger of loving deposits in your mind. Instead, fill the void you experience with the grace and love that you have so freely received from your Heavenly Father. Your mate deserves no less.

Some marriages are confronted head-on with an obvious and devastating conflict, creating a crisis situation. But many marriages erode from within, fueled by debilitating lies. These lies are rooted in ignorance, selfishness, and fear. Assumptions about your mate and his or her intentions can produce bitterness and frustration in your heart. Left unchecked, they will rob you of joy and erode your marital bond. But for lie, there is a corresponding and liberating truth capable of sparking a marriage renewal.

Five Lies

Your internal dialogue shapes your heart and actions. Can you relate to any of these thoughts?

Your spouse doesn’t care about you or your needs – Seeds of bitterness are in your heart.

Some relationships just aren’t meant to work out – Doubt creeps into your mind.

There is too much pain and bitterness to renew your marriage – Defeat overwhelms your spirit.

Making a fresh start with someone else would be easier – A glimmer of false hope entices your imagination.

If your spouse would change, then everything would be better – Self-centeredness blinds you to the real problems.

Bitterness, doubt, defeat, false hope and self-centeredness will exchange your gentleness for gruffness. Overtime, a wedge can be driven between your hearts and a widening gap appear in your relationship.

Five Truths

The lies that you rehearse in your mind, must be counteracted with truth. Consider the following statements of truth about your relationship.

You and your spouse are both children of God– Identity comforts your heart.

The Power of Marriage Renewal

The battlefield in your marriage is not an obvious one, it is a battlefield of the mind (Ephesians 6:11-12). You must counteract lies with truth. Throughout your relationship, you will encounter multiple times when you are in need of marriage renewal. Your marriage will need reflection and refreshment. During these times, you are faced with a choice:

Choice 1: Believe lies that set my heart against my mate and toward my own selfishness

Choice 2: Assume the best about my mate and embrace the truth of God’s goodness, marriage’s value, and the hope and power of marriage renewal.

Truth sets you free from the lies (John 8:31-32), equipping you to pursue marriage renewal with vigor.

The content in this post is adapted from our upcoming book (available on Amazon September 2014):

The Phoenix Marriage– Your most important earthly relationship can be restored, renewed, and reborn.

When my wife and I first met, I was attracted to her personality. I loved her outlook on life and I loved the way that she made me feel when I was with her. I was drawn to her tender heart, enchanted by her great sense of humor, and of course magnetized by our chemistry. I grew to love her based upon these amazing qualities and the guidance of my wise Heavenly Father.

At some point in those first several months, a change occurred. I don’t know when it happened exactly, but my feelings for Tammy matured into an unconditional love. I ceased to care for her based upon how I felt when I was around her. Instead, I chose to love her for who she is and for the special place in my heart that she had taken up residence.

Unconditional love, held hostage by conditional hearts

Within a couple years, the pressures of blending a family and fueling a career began to take their toll on our lives. Stress robbed us of quality time, intimacy, and peace. We still loved each other, but the warm cloak of closeness and tenderness we once enjoyed had become threadbare. An overall selfishness and busyness overshadowed our home.

Did we love each other? Absolutely! We never stopped loving each other. Was love experienced? Was it FELT? Intermittently. Our love for one another was still unconditional, but our demonstration of that love had become very conditional. We handed out loving deposits as if they were a scarce resource that needed to be hoarded. Acts of love and kindness were exchanged based upon mood, stress, and the relative degree of tension or peace in our home. Our unconditional love was held hostage and sparingly demonstrated by self-absorbed, conditional hearts.

Love without boundaries

For those familiar with our story, things got worse before they got better. We came to the brink of divorce before recommitting to God, each other, and our family. A critical part of that renewal involved learning to demonstrate love without boundaries, rules, or conditions.

Early in our renewal process, we attended a weekend marriage conference from Intimate Life Ministries. We learned so much that weekend and truly grew as a couple. One of the exercises walks you through a visualization of seeing your mate as a child of God rather than as your spouse. This was a profound and life-altering experience for us both. In doing so, I learned to love my wife — on one condition.

Unconditional love — on one condition

Loving unconditionally is hard. Some days you just don’t feel loving toward your spouse at all. The epiphany comes when you stop attaching your love to how you feel. Feelings are capricious and unpredictable. My wife’s identity in Christ, on the other hand, is constant. I love my wife because He loved her first.

The one and only condition for my love is that she is a unique creation of my loving Heavenly Father. That identity makes her lovable. That relationship makes her worthy. God knew her before she was born (Psalm 139:13). Before she had a belly button, God had a purpose for her life (Jeremiah 1:5; 29:11). She was God’s child before she was my wife. The single and sufficient condition for my love, is that she is His daughter.

She deserved love and honor long before I ever proposed. It just took me a few years to wake up and realize it.

As children we wrestled with the concept of truth, relying upon the almighty promise. Anyone could say they would do something, but did they PROMISE? Did they ‘pinky swear’? Or how about: “…cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” We would go to great lengths as children to re-enforce the truth of what we were saying with some sort of linguistic overture.

But what happens when that trust in words has been broken?

Words are tricky

Language is powerful. With it we can communicate thoughts, feelings, and intentions. We can convey knowledge, or reveal ignorance. Through language we can build up, or we can destroy. I wrote previously about the power of words in relationships (Sticks and Stones).

Sometimes, words fail us:

You try to express how you are feeling, but it comes out wrong, perhaps hurting your spouse.

In a moment of frustration you carelessly launch a volley of painful words at your mate.

You construct a web of lies with words in order to manipulate the relationship or hide your sin.

When words fail us, we find ourselves in a predicament. To right a wrong, we tend to rely upon language. To heal a hurt, we typically turn to conversation. To rebuild trust, we often make promises about what we will or won’t do in the future. But if your words have resulted in pain for your spouse. How can you possibly repair the relationship?

Actions are clear

When Tammy and I began to rebuild our own relationship, we quickly ran into a quandary. During marriage 1.0 (what Tammy and I refer to as the early, selfish, skewed version of our relationship) I had made a slew of commitments to Tammy. I told her that I would always honor her. I told her that I would never leave her. I told her that our family was a priority for me. I told her that I would keep her heart safe and protect her. But I violated her trust and replaced those commitments with an internal commitment to look out for myself and no one else. My words had failed me because they no longer carried any weight with my beloved.

As we began to build marriage 2.0 (our new, God-centered relationship), I found it very difficult to convince Tammy that things would truly be different. She didn’t trust me, and I didn’t blame her. So what do you do when your words carry no weight and yet you need to reassure your mate that the path of your new life together will be different? While praying over this, the Lord brought me a very simple and profound message – “You show her that you love her. Talk is cheap, but actions speak louder than words. Best of all, actions never lie.” It was simple, and yet so profound. If Tammy couldn’t trust the things I said, she could learn to trust me by my behavior. Where words had failed me, my patient and loving actions could knit her heart and her trust back together, little by little.

Talk is cheap. Action is priceless.

You will know them by their fruits

Throughout our renewal process, Tammy would repeatedly have doubts and fears crop up. This is natural, because as I have previously written, wounds heal crooked. Each time that Tammy was plagued with doubts about the things I would say and the commitments I would repeatedly make, I pointed her toward my actions to offer reassurance.

I would gently remind her by asking probing questions:

Am I behaving in a loving manner?

Do you see me putting your needs and our family’s needs first?

When I engage you, do you experience love and respect?

You see, not only are words tricky, but our emotions can get the best of us. We can get carried away with doubt, fear, and resentment from years of pain and neglect. So how can we sort it out and see what is true and what is false? The Bible says that you can identify a true heart vs a deceitful heart by looking at its ‘fruit’ (Matthew 7:16-18). So look at your mate’s actions and see if they reflect fruit from a loving heart (I Corinthians 13) and a soul devoted to becoming more Christ-like.

Words can fail you, but actions are clear and incapable of deceit. If you find that it is difficult to rely upon words when renewing and refreshing your marriage, turn towards the power and clarity of action. Instead of promising or swearing or sticking needles in your eye, demonstrate your love through the honor and care you bestow upon your mate. Serve your spouse daily with a selfless, authentic love. Your consistent acts of genuine love and service will resonate more clearly and effectively than any speech could ever hope to accomplish. Words come from the head, but behavior comes from the heart.